NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — It's a mystery that dates back almost 50 years, but Metro Police aren’t giving up on identifying the so-called "Harpeth River Jane Doe."
On March 24, 1976, around 5 p.m., a fisherman discovered the body of a teenage girl face down in the Harpeth River near the McCrory Lane Bridge.
Her jeans had been unbuttoned and she was not wearing a top. She had a mole on her left temple. She was wearing a choker necklace with white beads and a dove pendant, and a rawhide bracelet. Her cause of death was unknown.
Investigators estimated she had been dead less than 24 hours. As a result, police were able to get an accurate photo rendering of her face. She was believed to be between 14 and 17 years old, 5’2’’ tall and around 120 pounds. She had brown hair and brown eyes.
Dental and fingerprint information was recorded but didn’t link her to any missing person cases. With no identification, she became known as the Harpeth River Jane Doe.
Investigators did find an important clue in her pocket. She had a photograph of a blonde-haired boy with “Little Charley” written on the back with a phone number. When Metro Police called the phone number, they spoke with Charles Moore from East Nashville. He said he was with his brother-in-law, Milton Collins, on March 15, 1976, when they picked up two unidentified women who were hitchhiking on I-24.
Moore said one woman had sandy blonde hair, scars on her wrists, and wire-rimmed glasses with round lenses. The other woman he identified as the Harpeth River Jane Doe, and he believed she said her name was Cheryl or Sherry. Both women said they ran away from a mental health treatment facility in St. Paul, Minnesota, and claimed to be traveling to Haines City, Florida, to meet the blonde woman’s husband. The blonde woman was never identified.
Moore said he drove the two women about 85 miles to the Manchester exit off I-24 and offered his phone number in case they came back through Nashville and needed anything. He wrote his nickname “Little Charley” and his phone number on the back of the photo of the young child the Harpeth River Jane Doe had in her pocket. He told police he hadn’t seen the women since he dropped them off. He said the women got into another truck and drove off. Police say Moore and Collins are not persons of interest in the case.
The Harpeth River Jane Doe's body was found about 90 miles from where she was last seen, which added another twist to the investigation.
"We don’t know if they ever made it Florida," said Matthew Filter, a detective with the Metro Police Department's Cold Case-Homicide/Missing Persons unit. "We don’t know how she got back up to Nashville, or if she came back alone."
Jane Doe's body was buried in a cemetery on 18th Avenue North in Nashville, but through the years, grave markers were moved and knocked down. Therefore, investigators don’t know exactly where her body is located, and are unable to exhume it to get a sample of her DNA.
Without much else to go on, Detective Filter said the key to solving the case may be tied to the photo of her face and a drawing of her front teeth. He hopes someone will recognize them.
"We know obviously she had mother and father and possibly some siblings," said Filter. "There had to be other people in her life that knew her."
Even after decades of dead ends, Filter is still hopeful the case can be solved.
"This is probably one of our tougher unidentified remains cases to solve," said Filter. "We have very little to work with. This is one of those cases where we really need the public’s help in trying to get her identified."
Anyone with information about the Harpeth River Jane Doe is asked to contact the Metro Police Department Cold Case Unit at 615-862-7329 or Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463. Callers to Crime Stoppers can remain anonymous.
